A trio of Senate Democrats held a call with former star athletes and some of the nation’s top professional sports unions to denounce a bill making its way through the House that would establish national name, image and likeness rules, known as NIL, for college athletes.
Sens. Maria Cantwell of Washington, Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut and Cory Booker of New Jersey spoke Tuesday on a Zoom call co-hosted by players’ unions from the National Football League, Major League Baseball, the National Women’s Soccer League, Major League Soccer, the National Basketball Association and the National Hockey League.
Their collective message was for lawmakers to reject the SCORE Act, an NIL-related bill largely backed by Republicans and opposed by Democrats (despite being sponsored by Democratic Reps. Janelle Bynum of Oregon and Shomari Figures of Alabama). While the SCORE Act would deliver some uniformity to the largely unregulated world of NIL rules, critics of the law have characterized it as a gift to the National Collegiate Athletic Association.
“I can pretty well guarantee the SCORE Act ain’t gonna make it through the Senate,” said Blumenthal, suggesting that it won’t overcome the Senate’s 60-vote threshold without bipartisan support. The three senators on the call, led by Cantwell, previously introduced their own bill, the Student Athlete Fairness and Enforcement Act, to address NIL rules. Blumenthal called fair athlete compensation a matter of racial and economic equity, warning of the SCORE Act’s potential Title IX and antitrust exemptions, and suggesting that players are being “given the crumbs off a cake that grows every year.”
Booker argued that the House bill “halts the progress” athletes have made since a group of student athletes won a favorable Supreme Court ruling in 2021.
“There’s a lot of people scoring” from the SCORE Act, Cantwell said, singling out the NCAA and its executives. But, she added, “who’s not scoring is the athletes.”
Former professional soccer player and current NWSL Players Association executive director Meghann Burke claimed the law could create a “Title IX backslide” that will lead to “fewer genuine pathways for women athletes like myself, dressed up as compliance.” “I don’t believe the gains of the SCORE Act are worth the costs,” said Dwayne Allen, a former Super Bowl champion with the New England Patriots and a decorated college tight end, even as he acknowledged that the current NIL model is not ideal and that college athletes are going through the “growing pains of change.” Tuesday’s session stood in stark contrast to an event Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, hosted last year with former college football coach Nick Saban, in which the conversation was framed less around college athletes getting their fair share than around college athletes purportedly feeling entitled under current NIL rules. Asked Tuesday about the prospect of cooperating with Cruz on legislation, Blumenthal said there have been discussions but that “we’ve made no headway.”
Ja’han Jones is an MS NOW opinion blogger. He previously wrote The ReidOut Blog.
Latest Post
Recommended
